Doo-Doo-Wop
The continuing saga of building a high rise in Wildwood continues. As mentioned before, the mini skyscraper planned for the old Rio Motel site failed CAFRA (Coastal Area Facilities Review Act) review. Sounds almost redundant, doesn’t it? Plans for a similar structure, a few blocks down Ocean Avenue, have been ushered through by the various city authorities and will soon also face CAFRA review.
In keeping with the “doo-wop” theme, this latest monstrosity sports a cocktail glass design on the facade, complete with a couple of lava lamps, which, incidentally, relate not even remotely to the doo-wop era.
The regressively progressive mayor and company simply don’t get it. Doo-wop is not about tearing down authentic doo-wop architecture and replacing it with new, improved versions. Okay, so maybe the synthetic doo-wop themes of the Wawa and Acme Market would have been nice complements to the older buildings that generated the doo-wop hype, but they don’t work as stand-alone replacements. Neither does the old Atlantic Diner, transformed into the gaudy Pink Cadillac. The original diner was doo-wop, but the new version more closely resembles someone’s fantasy.
And what about those silly-looking street lamps along Ocean Avenue? Again, nothing similar ever existed during the doo-wop years, or at any other period of time, for what it’s worth! The only people who can drive past those stupid, overbearing, palm tree street signs without laughing, are those who sadly shake their heads in bewilderment. At least the embarrassing multi-colored sidewalks quickly faded away.
I suppose we can give a pass to the Starlux Motel, only because it’s sort of an upgrade to what existed before, although to say it’s overdone is a bit of an understatement.
Doo-wop, when related to architecture, was the Satellite Motel, and the Carousel and Kona Kai motels, and the Captain’s Table Restaurant, just to name a few of the more than one hundred already shoved into oblivion by bulldozers. Condos, for those who don’t know, never belonged to the doo-wop era, and make poor substitutes.
For some reason, certain individuals think they possess some superior ability to think up bigger and better things to benefit their respective communities, or life in general. What they fail to realize is that doo-wop was never contrived, or intentionally created as a theme. It just happened because that particular style of architecture prevailed at the time. Attempting to reinvent it according to someone’s idea of what it should have been only results in a ridiculous sideshow that offends, rather than gratifies. These feeble attempts at newer, improved versions of doo-wop architecture will almost certainly guarantee its demise forever.